The Red Planet Mars [DVD] [1952]

Harry Horner's notorious anti-Communist science-fiction/fantasy movie Red Planet Mars (1952) has arrived on DVD courtesy of Cheezy Flicks, in a surprisingly good quality edition. The transfer is superior to what one would expect on this now seldom seen movie (which was a staple of local television sci-fi movie programming, at least in New York, during the 1970's), with decent sound and a nice clear image, transferred full-screen (1.33-to-1). The only major supplement is a selection of trailers from other Cheezy Flicks titles, but that's okay -- this movie's entertainment value is not only self-contained but multi-leveled. The chaptering is fairly generous, given the rather rudimentary plot.

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Overview

Synopsis

Red Planet MarsA husband-and-wife scientist team (Peter Graves, Andrea King) are experimenting with a "hydrogen tube" invention (which he got from a missing German scientist, lost in the collapse of the Reich), when they get signals back from what appears to be Mars. The culture-shock of that event is serious enough, and the couple and their family are suddenly thrust into the spotlight. But then they begin to translate the increasingly complex messages (which started out as mathematical equations) that they receive back, and find that Mars is a perfect world, a true Utopia, and that the messages are quoting Scripture -- and the inevitable conclusion is that God is speaking from Mars. Soon a religious revival starts to spread across the globe. What they don't realize is that the messages are a very calculated fraud, being engineered by a Communist operative (Marvin Miller) and carried out by the scientist (Herbert Berghof) who invented the hydogen tube, and who now has an even more sinister agenda of his own. ~ Bruce Eder, Rovi